


Filled Tumblr Prompts

by ThisThatAndTheOther



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: A Molesley was harmed in the making of this fic, Brief mentions of the gaze, Bugs & Insects, Comedy, Gen, Horror, M/M, Magic Realism, Thomward, World War II, and the gays, fashion - Freeform, general weirdness, melancholy fix it fic, questioning of sanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisThatAndTheOther/pseuds/ThisThatAndTheOther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I called out for prompts on tumblr, and many kind and wonderful people obliged me. Here's where I'm putting all of my fills for their requests. </p>
<p>Tags and character list to change with each new story added.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thomas regretfully had become a man pursued by the textile-kind

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by tumblr user Tiesandtea  
> Prompt: Thomas Barrow wakes up one morning only to find his wardrobe full of RJC-type plaid shirts, olive green pants, and one single black velvet jacket.

Peculiar was not quite how he’d describe it.

Abnormal was closer.

Uncanny even more.

In fact, it was airing on the dark side of disturbing, and as Thomas stared deeper into his standing closet, he considered labelling the whole situation immensely disturbing, for it wasn’t normal for your closet to grow a whole new wardrobe on its own volition.

It had started exactly a week ago, to the very day. Thomas woke up, as per usual, and had pulled open his closet door to start dressing for the day. Unlike usual, he had one additional item hanging from the bar.

It stood out singularly by its garish colour, its red and blue tartan a shocking blaze against an otherwise monochrome palette; the offending article hung, slightly wrinkled and pilled, against his brushed, black jacket.

Thinking his mind playing tricks in the remnants of sleep, Thomas grabbed the shirt and yanked it from its hanger. It was solid, his hands finding in it no phantom fabric left-over from a dream, entirely real.

But how could it be so?

And how could it be so soft?

Thomas turned the shirt in his hands and marvelled at its tight weave, finding it unlike any tartan he had ever seen before. If it wasn’t such a terrible colour, it would have made a wonderful night shirt.

A paper-like tag was sewn into the stitching of its collar.

MADE IN BANGLADESH.

O’Brien.

It had to be her. 

Admittedly, it was an odd joke to play and probably more than a bit expensive to execute. And to what purpose, he could not guess. In the past, however, he had found much of her motivations to be as opaque as muddy water, and it could be no one else.

He ignored the other, funny symbols of circles and triangles with squiggly lines running through them, chalking it up to cultural differences – though, admiring the skill of sewing something so intricate so small.

Thomas didn’t know how she could have managed it, as he absently rubbed the fabric between his fingers. His lips curled sourly with the thought of her still managing to poke him, even so far away as India. Without a way of retaliating, he knew his only course of action was to curse her with days’ worth of sun sickness, dispose of the shirt, and pretend it never happened.

What was supposed to be an isolated incident that Thomas happily took to the grave, repeated itself, seven times in fact – each day producing a new shirt of equally tasteless composition.

With a cock of his head and a woeful pout, he greeted these new arrivals in their terrible reds, blues, oranges, and greens, and rolled them up into resentful balls. Not before, of course, Thomas touched the fabric, letting his fingers run down the arms of the shirt covetously. And not before, Thomas cursed O’Brien to other such things that befit a lady’s maid in India, like snake bites, food poisoning, and cricket fatigue. And of course, these curses extended to Alfred, for good measure.

Because without an ounce of starch, these heinously rumpled shirts were the softest items in his closet. And his practice of disposing of them in the evening when no one else was looking had become almost regretful.

Almost.

On the dawning of the sixth day, the pattern finally broke. Unfortunately, it was for the worse. His wardrobe sported not only a new tartan shirt but a pair of trousers dyed a mournful green – a green so simultaneously bright and muted that only the word ‘snot’ came to mind – a green that had no business colouring any garment, much less trousers – a green, that would suit absolutely no one.

As with the shirts, the trousers were made of parts unknown – its fabric not wool and its fastener not buttons. It also had a tag sewn along the waistline, stating it was MADE IN CHINA with something called 25% POLYESTER, advising that it contained dyes which may discolour other materials with which it comes in contact.

It was at this point, Thomas whimpered.

This was not the work of O’Brien. Or of anyone else in the abbey, for that matter. It could only mean he was beleaguered by something beyond himself, possibly outside of this realm – a hypothesis Thomas did not arrive at lightly, as the idea of the supernatural meddling with his closet was only less disagreeable then Thomas potentially losing his mind.

Thomas regretfully had become a man pursued by the textile-kind.

The remainder of his day was spent in an agitated state that had affected the whole house. Eyebrows were cocked at the chink of his teacup as he anxiously set it down – glances shared at his untouched meals – smirks at his sudden aversion to Baxter’s sewing machine.

All of which, he could not see as he was so consumed by the bizarre state of his closet – the insistent weight of the balled-up clothing under his bed, waiting to be thrown out – the tense anticipation of what waited for him in the morning.

He went to bed fearful that night, besieged as he was by these tenacious fashion deliveries, and in the morning, he faced his closet as a man depressed.

He opened the door.

Inside hung a tartan shirt, a pair of trousers, and, to Thomas’ distress, some kind of jacket. He stared, troubled by the way the fabric was draped with nefarious purpose.

A small giggle escaped his previously terse lips. He was unhinged – that could be the only answer.

Well, perhaps, Thomas thought, he should match madness with lunacy; he was going to wear it.

Donning the shirt was a simple task, its gentle caress at his shoulders even more comfortable than he had thought; the ugly green trousers slipped on with ease, its fastener making a curious zipping noise; and the jacket, single breasted with notch lapels, fit like a dream.

For a moment, Thomas stood still and waited for doom to strike.

In the silence of his room, none came, and with a small smirk, he appreciated the cut of his new clothes – the waistline of his pants far lower and looser than usual, the shirt far tighter than his own. With a flick of his wrists, he turned towards the mirror and admired his silhouette.

A completely wild and vulgar view that could never been seen in public but had a curious pull.

It was at this time that a knock rapped against the door. Thomas turned and watched as the lever depressed, Carson’s voice ring on the other side.

“Mr. Barrow, I have to—“

“No, no, no!”

Thomas watched in dread as the door swung open, Carson deaf to his cries. In the early morning glow, both men were revealed to each other. They stared in complete silence with matching pale faces.

Carson’s mouth opened and closed thrice with stuttering sounds, “Uh—…. Hmm, uh—“

Another heavy silence followed. With a worried swallow, Thomas stepped forward.

“Whatever you’re thinking, Mr. Carson, know that none of this is mine.”

Finally, the butler found his voice, the volume of which could be heard throughout the dormitory.


	2. Thomas and Molesley Do Generally Spooky Things In Under 2000 Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by: tumblr user anuninvitedsomeone  
> Prompt: do spooky things. IDK we had a lot of weird ideas channel us last summer

“No, it—it just isn’t possible.” The words scraped reluctantly past Thomas’ dry throat in a rough whisper.

Molesley nodded once sagely, and Thomas hated him more, if it was possible. Hated the drab and grey idiocy that smudged at his features until they were soft and unassuming. Hated the way his precisely fitted median of mediocrity, lurking in his average height and fermenting in his male pattern baldness, allowed him to slump before Thomas unselfconscious and gloating.

“Thomas, of course it is possible,” he said, voice wobbling, “I’m here, standing in front of you, aren’t I?”

A fact that was undeniably true, as he was before him, solid and audibly breathing – each exhale a small affront to Thomas’ very being – in the courtyard. Which meant the events of the previous night were false. That had to be it.

But.

He’d seen the body.

Moved the body.

And had spent a whole night agonising over that fact.

Thomas opened his mouth to tell Molesley that – to express the absurdity of their situation – to communicate just how angry he was for being in it – anything – but found himself at a loss of words. Suddenly overcome with the unnecessary injustice of his situation, he snapped his jaws shut with a noticeable clip of his teeth.

Keep it together, Thomas.

“I don’t begrudge you for it,” Molesley continued looking out from his beady, vermin eyes. “It were an accident.”

It had been an accident, of course, Molesley clarified the detail needlessly. It wasn’t like Thomas actively wanted to harm Molesley, no matter how annoying he could be following Baxter like a lovelorn puppy in need of house training. He was harmless in a frustratingly annoying way. But the man, in an attempt to be of some value, had gotten in Thomas’ path and all Thomas could do was blink against the yielding sponge of Molesley’s body against his own before suddenly the footman was on the ground with a centrifugal pond of varicose red staining the tile below.

Looking over him with a voice sliding out meekly from a deep crag within himself, weak for having travelled so far, Thomas called Molesley’s name. He didn’t move. Thomas pointed a toe and jabbed the man in the calf, producing an ungainly shudder of movement in the leg before it lolled back into place. A quickly placed finger against the man’s throat proved what Thomas feared to be true: the man was dead. He envisioned telling the others and could feel the cold bite of iron around his wrists. Even if Carson barely tolerated Molesley, he would probably not condone his outright murder, and he would most certainly not entertain the idea that Thomas did it accidentally.

What happened next, Thomas knew, did not reflect well upon his character, but he had few options at the time. In the heat of the moment. Something Thomas rarely, if ever, had the correct defence against.

And so, what was supposed to be a rare evening to himself was spent dragging Molesley out to the nearby forest and cleaning up the pool of blood that, due to its sheer size, was barely tacky after hours of being left undisturbed.

With only an hour before dawn and a body buzzing with adrenaline, Thomas retired to his room a man fraught with guilt – sleep an impossibility. He stared at his reflection for a time, trying to find the difference between the man that was and the man that is. Was there a change, a dimming of the eyes or a darkening of the fragile skin underneath them, that Thomas could see? Or perhaps it was something deeper, a stain on his biological makeup that seeped black and viscous through his veins. Thomas would press his nails into the thin layer of skin covering his face, ripping through layers of muscles and fat, to map its progress if only his hands would stop shaking.

Too soon the morning sun greeted him, its warm and sticky rays feeling false to Thomas. Walking through the halls stiffly, Thomas arrived to breakfast mindless with ineffable dread, certain he was ripe with culpability. The others would smell the iron and see the red that he was sure of which he would never rid himself and match it to that left congealing on Molesley’s soon-to-be-discovered skull in the woods. It was probable that he would see the inside of a jail cell by afternoon.

The last thing he had expected was to find Molesley sitting at the table, shoving his face full with porridge.

Standing in the doorway, Thomas choked, convinced it was the ghost of the footman back with, albeit stodgy, revenge. It was only until Baxter laughed at something Molesley said that Thomas realised that the others too could see him. The discovery sent a chill through Thomas’ veins, and it was with deliberate, curtailed movements that he brought himself to sit in his seat, ready to face his fate.

He must have made a mistake – a giant, glaring error – in thinking that Molesley was dead. Now he had only attempted murder and left the poor man amongst the underbrush. He felt sick. The police would be here any minute to take him away.

When Baxter turned an appraising eye towards him, Thomas was struck dumb the weight of her stare. Eyes wide, Thomas could feel his lips warble with a life of their own, expressing as they saw fit his level of utmost anxiety. Pressing them into a thin line, he waited for his sentence.

“Did you not sleep well, Mr. Barrow?” She asked, voice bright as dandelions. A small and sympathetic smile quirked her lips, “You look awfully tired.”

It had to be a trap, a plot to have him reveal all his evils. Well, despite what she thought, he wouldn’t do it, so he sat silently, feeling the flutter of his heart beat against his chest like the wings of a caged bird.

“We’ve been very busy lately, remember. I know the life of a footman is never easy,” Molesley said, “so I’m sure Mr. Barrow can be just as fatigued as any of us.”

At Molesley’s look, free of blame or malice, Thomas stood, causing his chair to scrape shrilly against the floor. Fleeing the room full of shocked faces for the water closet, Thomas promptly vomited in the sink basin.

Now, hours later, in the chill evening of the courtyard, he stood before Molesley confused.

“But… but I kill—,” Thomas looked towards the brick walls to steal some strength from their foundations. He lowered his voice to a sharp whisper, “But you were dead.”

“Yes, but only for a time.”

As if that answered anything. Having avoided a sentence of man-slaughter, Thomas now had the luxury of feeling the impatience of dealing with Molesley. A tenseness of his muscles, a twinge in his head.

“How?”

“Well, that I’m not too sure about, but whenever one of us dies, a new one comes along.”

“Comes alo—What? What?! One of you?” Thomas grabbed at Molesley shoulders and shook him hard enough to dislodge a wisp of his hair, “What do you mean, man?”

An affronted look graced his doughy features, as if this was worse than cracking his head open on the tile.

“Well, I don’t know! Whoever dies is me, and the me that wakes up is the same, but he’s also different,” Molesley hesitated at Thomas baffled face, “Look, just – I don’t mean to be difficult, but that’s just how it is.”

That’s it, Thomas. You managed it; you’ve suffered a complete and utter breakdown.

A loud bang from inside the abbey startled Thomas, making him realise the unbearable silence stretching between them. And that he continued to grasp wrinkles into the shoulders of Molesley’s jacket.

With a deep breath, Thomas entertained the bizarre reality Molesley presented. He had to, embroiled as he was since the events of the previous night.

“So, you’re cloned? Are you… is he… still out there?”

Molesley shook out his arms, unsuccessfully smoothing the creases in his clothing. “No, not exactly clones. And no, he’s not out there. He’s gone. Poof! No longer there as soon as I arrived.”

“And… when… were you,” _Born_ was the wrong word. Unsavoury was the thought of Molesley, covered in amniotic fluids, being born from anyone. The word halted in his throat, fitted uncomfortably in Thomas’ mouth, imprisoned by his teeth, but he could think of no other word with which to replace it.

“Born?” Molesley offered and Thomas shuddered, “Depending on how it happened, about eight hours, give or take. Can never be quite sure, you know,” Molesley nodded thoughtfully.

“No matter how you… die?”

“Nope.”

“Every time?”

Molesley nodded again, but Thomas missed it completely, for he had spied a substantial plank of wood abandoned against the wall by which they stood.

“I hope you know there are no hard fee—“

The words stuttered to a halt as the wood struck the side of Molesley’s face with enough force to splinter the piece in two. Following the arc of Thomas’ swing, Molesley wilted until he fell to the ground on his side with a thump.

Thomas inspected the broken timbre with a calculating eye as a small moan issued from bleeding lips. Pressing his foot against one side, he liberated the longer piece from its damaged brother and palmed it in his hands, considering its weight. He then proceeded to beat it against the lump of Molesley’s body, occasionally exchanging its blunt side with the sharp edge of its fractured point, until his breaths were stolen from his chest with deep gasps and his arms were tired.

Below him, Molesley was still and gory in his injury with a quietness that could only be attributed to the dead.

Heaving him in his arms, Thomas shoved the heavy body into a small shed, struggling with errant limbs that refused to stay still. He shut the door and allowed himself to lean against it as he caught his breath. No one would use this shed until tomorrow afternoon, if that. Considerably more than eight hours.

Bright and clear eyed from a full nights’ sleep, Thomas smirked in the servant’s hall the next morning as Molesley glared daggers across the table. Hiding his broadening smile behind his teacup, Thomas considered all the ways he could kill Molesley next. Perhaps a pillow. Or a spoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any prompts that you want filled, give me a shout. I may not have them out soon, but I'll get to it.


	3. Thomas is spiderman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by tumblr user are-are-kay
> 
> Prompt: bugs invade downton. Not in a funny way either -in a gross, terrifying 'the walls are covered in centipedes and there are spiders filling the bathtub' kind of way. At first only Thomas can see the bugs. Then more and more people start to see them- just a flicker out of the corner of their eye, at first....

He didn’t know when he got it, as it appeared unremarkably sometime during the day; not before or after he went to bed the night before, nor after his early morning standing bath. By mid-morning—Thomas was willing to say—his wrist had still remained unblemished. But sometime between then and now, as the sun fell closer to the horizon and its light bled crimson across the sky, it had shown up—a soft bump on his wrist—almost imperceptible against the starch of his cuffs if it were not for the slight pink of inflammation surrounding its raised topography.

Far more distressing were the twin pinpricks of deep red marking its centre, clearly indicating the puncture marks of a spider’s fangs. And while the origin of the bite was unknown, and its acquisition was suffered painlessly, it now itched mercilessly.

Thomas curled his lips as the last pass of his nail bothered one of the pinpricks until it haemorrhaged. Though it bled very little, it quickly filled in all of the tiny, crisscrossing lines of the neighbouring skin, immediately turning a rusted brown as it dried. He sucked on it, unconsciously bringing his wrist to his mouth, letting his tongue needle against the taste of pennies.

“You’re to smack it,” Mrs. Baxter’s voice startled Thomas, who quickly withdrew his limb from his face.

“Pardon?”

“For bug bites—you’re to spit on the bite and slap it,” she smiled, “or at least that’s what my grandmother told me.”

Dubious, then, its origins, Thomas figured as he flicked his arm down, allowing the fabric of his suit to fall properly against his wrist. Proper once again.

“And?” an eyebrow raised, “Did it ever work?”

“Not really, no, but—“ she shrugged, “I suppose I forgot about it for a time, having been slapped by my grandmother.”

He hummed and a smile tweaked the corners of his lips as he moved towards the door. He had met Mrs. Baxter’s grandmother could guarantee she could have packed quite a wallop. 

The sound of water draining through pipes in the walls followed him as he stalked through the halls, as it had done all day—something that he made a mental note to mention to Carson about later. It hadn’t rained for days, so the noise was curious—perhaps a warning of a soon-to-be discovered flood somewhere in the abbey.

He sighed. As long as the attics were left untouched, he supposed, it wouldn’t be so bad.

But quickly, the abbey’s potential drainage problems were lost into the ether, as Thomas worked diligently through inventory until he was needed for dinner. By then, the waterlines of his eyes burned, and Thomas believed he could hear him them click each time he blinked.

One yawn, small and obscured by a raised hand, could be waved off as negligible, considering the company. A second, so close after the first, was undoubtedly rude; moreover, three yawns—the last of which was so sizeable his jaw audibly popped in the dining room—were vulgar, and had it been Molesley, he would have angled for demotion.

He flared his nostrils to ward against a fourth and unforgiveable yawn, glad for once that the extent of the family’s attention remained solely on themselves. Across the room, Molesley too was oblivious, focusing the majority of his attention on maintaining his posture. Yet, with keen eyes burrowed under a ledge of an impenetrable black brow, Carson hadn’t missed any of Thomas’ theatrics. There was no mistaking the severe stare that suggested he had enumerated each yawn with an ever-increasing outrage.

So there were to be words later, Thomas expected. Words dipped in the puce colour of condescension—a generous coating applied in thick layers applied to his character, his livelihood—as if Thomas didn’t know how to do his job. A layer—just one of many—that others had painted in great swathes; a layer, like the others, that would be removed with the subtle care necessary to preserve the gradation of his own meticulous design.

But that was later.

For now, he had a dinner service to survive. He withdrew inwards and clenched his teeth to prevent anymore external signs of fatigue—eyes glazing over as he lost himself in the curious way the light reflected in the brass fixtures adorning the walls.

Very quickly the room dissolved into vague, shadowy shapes and halos, and he could have stared off into the middle distance forever, unblinking. His eyes, neither too wet nor too dry, had relaxed until the image of the room before him blurred and his sight overlapped in the middle.

A smear of black—dark and quick enough to jolt him from his daze—moved across the wall. His eyes sharpened with painful speed, but the dark mass was faster—its form lost before Thomas ever saw it.

Keeping his body still, his eyes roved the wall and its nearby adornments. Whatever he had seen was gone, leaving only smooth walls and empty corners.

If he saw anything. He was more than tired enough to allow the light to play tricks against his mind. Blinking against grit, he shook himself from such games and kept his eyes clear for the remainder of the evening—heaving a sigh of relief when the family deemed the evening having gone on long enough.

It was hours later when Thomas passed by the servants’ hall. He hadn’t meant to stop on his way towards the stairs, but the room was unusually full and the noise had a curious pull.

“Care to join us, Mr. Barrow?” Baxter asked.

She was sitting next to Molesley and the table before them was covered in cards.

“Ah,” Thomas said. Not that he was particularly interested in disturbing that coterie, but he did appreciate the offer. With their chairs angled towards each other, the small space they shared appeared immensely private for being in the open. He knew he would be unnecessary and unwanted addition, even without the current glare being levelled by Molesley.

He yawned. No games or a bit of chat tonight. It seemed he was destined to be the first to bed.

“Perhaps another time,” he offered with a tight smile, eyes already drifting to the corner of the room where a house spider had laid claim, “but thank you.”

His wrist prickled.

“You can deal us in,” Anna said from behind him, moving into the room with her husband—the two of them having forgiven Mrs. Baxter some time ago.

Allowing their addition to the group to distract the others, he left with a quiet goodnight. Thomas forewent his final cigarette of the evening, choosing instead to head straight for the stairs. His fingers found the raised bump on his wrist and scratched.

Behind him, the warm din of the hall buffeted his back, a stark contrast to the empty stairs before him—a cold draught drifting down their steps.

“Mr. Barrow,” The knell of Carson’s low baritone stopped him with one foot pressed against the first step, his nail continued to niggle at his wrist. He had a vision of a small school boy before his headmaster, so he quickly dropped his hand to the railing.

“I hope that you are headed straight to bed, to ensure that there won’t be a repeat of tonight’s performance.” The shadows of the hallway clung to his body, and Thomas had to squint to see him.

“Of course, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said, for once with the very intention of doing just that.

The butler nodded, seemingly satisfied, and turned back towards his office, “Very well. Goodnight.”

With an echoing sentiment, Thomas climbed until he was in his room, quick in case Carson changed his mind and spoke with him at length for his indiscretion. He undressed with the lethargy of someone desperately needing to sleep—slow and yet keen to bare themselves ever faster. It was almost an afterthought to place his clothes on their appropriate hangers.

He caught his reflection in the mirror and pressed his fingers along the curve of bone under his eyes. The skin in that semi-circle was bruised—a dark deposit in a quarry of angled shadows cast by his desk lamp.

A noise—just something small and wet—pulled his eyes from the mirror.

Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, causing Thomas to swivel on his heels and evaluate the four walls of his room. His body froze, forgotten while eyes searched—calculating. In lack, his ears pricked—the canal dilating like that of a pupil, desperately trying to capture sound.

There.

Tinny and echoing—dripping.

It was that damned water again, trickling in a particularly moist manner within his walls, almost juicy and sticky. Thomas undulated his tongue slowly against his palate and soft, smacking lips and was able to recreate the sound.

With a grimace Thomas realised he hadn’t mentioned his plumbing fears to Carson—or to anyone, for that matter—at all that day. Oh well—it was too late now, and with the water just draining from the roofs through the pipes, it was hardly worth addressing. It was faint enough that with eyes closed and head indenting the pillow, Thomas could easily ignore it, and soon the noise leached into nothingness—a nothingness that Thomas soon fell into, as sleep claimed him, quick and encompassing.

He dreamt of darkness—though, he was sure he was crawling through sodden trenches. On his belly, he flung his arm out into the void and sunk his hand into something cold and slick—the feel of it sluicing through his knuckles in excess—and with little purchase he gained, he pulled himself forward repeating the action ad infinitum. All around him that sound pressed in, as if the very ground was resonating its note until it vibrated in his bones, his chest, his heart—until the muscle began to beat in time with it. Unnaturally, wildly off-beat—unsustainable. Thomas was going to die down here. If not for the earth of his small passage collapsing, it’d be his heart giving out. It was in his mouth now, the wetness almost gelatinous between his gums—thick, needing to be chewed— and if he could just clear it to get one deep breath—just one—just keep pushing forward he might just make it—

He awoke to silence, and with the washing of dawn through his windows and across his wall, the tight grip of his dream weakened until it was nothing but tendrils pruned into nothing. In its place a dull ache pressed at his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

Turning off the lamp that he had accidentally left on during the night, Thomas considered the feeling of discomfort only just a moment—indulging in a full body stretch—before he grabbed his bag of toiletries and headed towards the toilets. Moving quietly through the hallway, fatigue filled his body—a slow leaking from his head until the flood sank heavy in his legs.

Avoiding the mirror for all that it could reveal, Thomas placed his toiletries to the side of the sink that sat underneath it. He touched the tap handle with one hand and unwrapped the chain of the stopper hanging from the spout before he finally looked to the drain. Its silver band was sparkling clean save for one thick, black hair resting at the mouth of the pipe.

Perfect.

Arming himself with a grimace, he used the rubber of the stopper to edge the hair down the pipe.

As soon as it was touched, the hair rippled against the plug, but it didn’t dislodge itself from the drain. Thomas watched curiously as its once linear shaft shifted and bent itself into clear segmentations—joints—that lifted and pulled. What was just one was now followed by another strand and another and another—each fibre latching onto the inner rim of the drain and portioning its length just the same as the first until it was clear that the drain’s circumference was lined not with hair but with legs—legs that were supporting the body of a large spider now pushing up from the bowels of the pipes, its rump swollen and shiny. Small mandibles rubbed against a set of reflective eyes.

“Eugh!” he jumped back, releasing the stopper to bounce wildly against the porcelain.

The spider scattered silently, dodging the plug, and was up and over the lip of the sink before Thomas could blink. He grimaced; it wasn’t that he disliked spiders, but one so sudden and so large was not welcomed so early in the morning.

His knees cracked as he bent to look under the sink to see where it had gone.

Nothing. The clean underside of the sink and silver pipes showed not even a drifting strand of cobweb.

Pushing against the floor, he stood before the sink and grabbed the stopper, plunging it into the drain. Thomas turned the water tap to full and watched as the basin filled. He shivered, feeling the phantom crawl of the spider all over his body—

His arm.

His shoulder blades.

The back of his neck.

His ear—

each tiny hair on his body standing on guard against unwanted passengers. He ran his fingers through his bed softened hair, suspecting each twinging strand to be the cause of a black and menacing body.

He turned back towards the mirror and reached for his razor in time to see in the reflection a searching black leg move over his earlobe.

It was on him.

With a strangled yell, he grabbed for the body that he knew was connected to the limb, his hand making contact with a surprisingly solid form.

It met the ground with an audible thunk, and in its disorientation, stayed still for a moment—its legs curled protectively around its hideous belly. A moment was all Thomas needed to raise his slippered foot and bring his whole weight down against the fallen creature. The resounding squelch of the abdomen crushed against his sole made something deep within the primordial crags of his being shudder in revulsion.

He lifted his foot and examined the black and green splatter of its innards mashed together with its still twitching limbs.

It was now—in the surety of its death—that Thomas realised his heart was thudding violently against his ribs.

There was no crisis. It was just a spider.

His wrist throbbed.

The feeling of splashing water against his bare ankle made Thomas jump back. He had left the tap on, and its flowing waters had filled the basin while he dueled with the spider until it spilled over the sides and onto the tiles below.

“Shit,” he hastily pulled the tap shut. In the ensuing silence, his breath reverberated loudly against the washroom’s walls. He took a deep, calming breath. In. Out.

The creeping feeling of something foreign touching him followed him all day. A faint tickling of his skin and scalp whispered threats every few moments, his hair shifting like grass parting for a stalking leopard. His fingers followed the lines of his collar and cuffs, hands worrying at the fabric of his suit, just to make sure there was nothing there, forever suspicious even though he knew there was nothing. It was relentless—just as he began to forget, an itch at his leg or an itch at the base of neck would have him shivering.

It was becoming a tiring habit that left Thomas’ skin and sense of space hyper-sensitive. He was aware of where he was within a room at all times—particularly how close he was to the more darkened corners of the hallways and stairs cases, in case there were any other spiders to be found.

Worse still, was the terrible itch of his vulnerable wrist. The skin around the bite was now an inflamed red, as the tips of his fingers had dug into its surface long ago, making it just as sore as it was itchy. The sharp edge of his nail caused acute damage, making the once delicate and separate pinpricks merge into a jagged mar. It would scab, if only he would stop worrying it so.

That’s it—he had to make a conscious effort not to rip the skin right off at his wrist. An easier thing thought than done, as his starched cuffs swept over his sensitised skin.

Descending the stairs to enter the servants’ hall, Thomas had his mind on the rocking chair near the fireplace, hoping its comfort would dispel some of his anxiety. Halfway down, he stopped; the trickling noise had started up again.

Thomas brought his face closer to the wall, listening to it alternate between a moist sucking sound and that of a tinny pitter-patter. Just as it happened the previous night in his room, it stopped suddenly, and after waiting for a few, silent moments it didn’t resume.

When he reached the room, he asked the others, “Did it rain last night?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Anna said, shaking her head with lips pursed.

By now Thomas had sat down in his chair, attempting to luxuriate in the fire’s glow, but his damned wrist burned hotter as if in spite of his earlier promise. The skin surrounding the bite’s lump vibrated in its need to be scratched. He shook himself when he noticed Anna was looking to him expectantly. “I keep hearing the pipes draining.”

“I haven’t heard anything.”

He didn’t ask that, knowing full-well what he had heard whether or not Anna had heard it as well. There was water in the pipes, no matter if Downton hadn’t seen rain lately.

“Perhaps there’s a blockage somewhere, then.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Carson said from the door, prompting everyone to rise from their seats, “you should be less concerned with the pipes in the walls then the water in the sinks.”

Heads turned curiously towards Thomas. The butler, of course, had found out about the overflowing sink early that morning. He had passed by the door just as Thomas had opened it to fetch more towels with which to sop up his mess. It had been an uncomfortable moment made all the more awkward when Thomas had no excuse for the waste of water, having not wanted to say he was so frightened by a spider that he had mindlessly let the water run. It had earned him a stern talking to then—one that, evidently, did not satisfy Carson’ sense of propriety.

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said through a smile thinned with falsity, conceding his point in order to hurry the butler along. He watched as Carson left—only when he was gone from the doorjamb did his lips ripple in annoyance.

“What was that all about?” Mrs. Baxter asked.

“Never you mind,” Thomas answered in kind, pushing out of the rocking chair. The comfort he had yearned for would not be found within these four walls, and certainly not with these people.

He found himself in his bedroom, once again the first to bed in twice as many nights. He was tired, he excused, and the others were an annoyance.

In the privacy of his room, Thomas examined his wrist with mild disgust. The circumference of the irritated, red skin surrounding the bite had now doubled in size after a day’s worth of mindless scratching. Little, white flecks of dry skin coated the first layer or two of dermis over the tender area, making his wrist look blotchy.

He stared at the bite, trying to force the itch to disappear by the strength of his desire alone. Recalling Baxter’s advice from earlier he raised his hand and slammed his open palm against the raised bump.

“Godda—“ His curse was silenced as he bite his lips closed. He curled protectively over his wrist, now pressed against his belly.

That had hurt—horrendously so.

But—

As Thomas unfurled himself, he found that the resounding sting from his slap had somewhat staunched its unanswerable itch.

He was able to climb into bed and find sleep quickly, finally not thinking about lurking insects or his tender wrist.

He was back underground, blinded by the lack of light deep within his subterranean tunnels. It was as if he had never left, mired as he was within the muck. He was stuck—surely, he was sinking as if it were quicksand, and the sludge was swallowing him whole. All around him, he could feel the cool, viscous fluid as if it were a living thing, its heart beat fluttering so quickly Thomas couldn’t keep count. It was just that sound and the mud and the knowledge that he would find his end in all this. 

He opened his mouth to scream, but it was immediately filled with palpitating sludge, forcing itself down his throat and into his lungs—his belly full with it until he was to burst, the promised explosion to eject it and bits of himself back into the swamp, until they were fully blended—fused as one.

It was when he was so close—intimate—with his prison that its true horror dawned on him. Its pounding heartbeat was not the wild pulse of a single being, incensed and enlivened by the activity of swallowing him whole, but it was the beating of hundreds of tiny little hearts thumping out of time from one another. The mud around him was pulsating with the lifeblood of thousands.

But no—it wasn’t mud at all. The thick and chewy sludge moved like no mud Thomas knew of, writhed like no mud should. If there were light to see by he knew he would see thousands of squirming bodies, pressed en masse around him, wriggling with nowhere to go but in his mouth, his belly—dear god they throbbed inside him and—

Thomas awoke, disorientated, blinking against the dawn—another headache pounding behind sleep squinting eyes. He stared at his ceiling as his heart thumped strongly against his sternum, making him feel weak and spent against his pillow. It was trying to tell him something, reminding him of some forgotten dream, but with the pressure in his head, he couldn’t quite recall.

The skin of his wrist was hot to the touch, and before realising it, Thomas was dragging a nail against it. Looking down, he was surprised to see the irritated skin already smeared with blood—he must have worried it during his sleep—a few droplets of red marred the whites of his sheets.

He submerged his skin into the cool water of his basin, watching as thin tendrils of red slithered up from his wrist. After the worst of the burn diminished, Thomas grabbed his towel to dry his arm. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he was shocked to see the violet bruises ruining the delicate skin under his eyes—marvelling at the dark semi-circles, much darker than they had been the day before. He grimaced. He looked as though he hadn’t had sleep in days—worse was, he felt the same way.

Lumbering through the day, he ran through his tasks listlessly, giving orders to the hallboys in a monotone apathy. He followed Molesley and Andy into the dining room in a daze, measuring the place settings as they put the plates down upon the table. He had been hovering next to Andy when he saw several ants scatter towards the table’s edge from underneath a folded serviette.

Jumping back, his measuring stick almost knocked over several crystal wine glasses had it not been for the quick reflexes of Andy. His heart had stuttered, shot straight to his throat.

When he directed his eyes back to the table, the ants were gone.

“Did you see that?” Thomas once again found himself bending to his knees searching for a lost insect. The ants were gone, leaving no trace on the white tablecloth or the chairs or even the carpet.

From above him, Andy towered over him, shaking his head in confusion. “See what?”

Picking up the serviette, he shook out the fabric to ensure there was nothing hidden. He smoothed a hand over his hair and shoulder, making sure there were no ants hiding on his person. He didn’t want a repeat from the other morning.

When he looked up both Andy and Molesley were staring.

“I want you to redo these place settings.” If they were hiding anywhere, they would find them.

At their indignant cries, Thomas gripped his measuring stick tighter and let the full weight of his authority as underbutler fill his words. “Just do it.”

He watched as they cleared the table completely, even going so far as requesting that they shake out the table cloth as well.

But nothing was revealed, to Thomas’ annoyance, leaving him no choice but to allow them to redress the table. After they reset the plates and all of the appropriate cutlery and glassware, Thomas took the opportunity to scour the table top as he corrected the spaces between pieces.

Nothing, strangely. Gone as if they never existed—and to Andy and Molesley’s account, they never did.

It was only when he slipped into Carson’s office, where he could let the fatigue he was feeling show its true mark on his frowning face and slumped body that he realised just how tired he was. His brain seemed to be stewed in it, making thoughts come by slow and senseless. Perhaps the fright of the spider the day before had clouded his judgement, making him paranoid.

He pinched at his nose, drawing strength from somewhere deep within him. Carson had sent him there to retrieve a few bottles of the newest vintage of Riesling the family had purchased. As he perused the stores, his fingers found the bite on his wrist.

At first, he only just pressed the soft pads of his fingers against the bite, feeling its heat—reminding himself of it presence. It almost burnt at his touch—hotter than the rest of his arm. And it itched so much, unlike any other spider bite Thomas ever had before. He had images of a dark and viscous poison running deep beneath the bump, sure that the spider that bit him was venomous in some way—a toxin so wicked it stoked a fiery heat. Its gluey liquid polluted the subcutaneous tissue, rushing to the surface in answer to the press of his unsullied fingers in search of more flesh to corrupt.

Would it bleed black, if he were to scratch long enough to find the poison’s origins? He wondered what it would feel like in his mouth. The answer—thick and chewy—came to him from a seeming void within himself.

Running over the very the centre of the bite first, his nails cut the fresh scab that had formed. Then, gaining speed, Thomas began to scratch more aggressively—faster and wilder then ever—until his nails passed his wrist, up and down his arms to cover more skin, tracking great scores of red in their wake. With each pass of a nail, the itch only became worse. Yet to stop would be just as bad. He needed to dig out the cause to end this once and for all. Heedless of the burning that now branded his wrist, he continued. The feeling of his wrist underneath his fingers making conscious of the fact that the afflicted area was his—his body—a body betraying its owner. The sound of his fingers passing over his skin was fleshy, suggestive of the hidden meat below it—tissue and muscle that was surely riddled with some spider’s toxin. 

A sudden crash and the answering curses from the kitchens broke Thomas from his fever. With a cry, he looked down at his bloodied wrist.

What had he done?

Shakily he turned to view the wine again, looking away from the damage his momentary madness had caused—needing to separate himself from his lapse in control. Thomas felt his heart beat weakly, caged and claustrophobic at the thoughts of the gummy and black poison running through his veins. He turned to his task, wanting to find himself again in his duty.

He found the three Rieslings resting on their shelf easily, sitting just above his line of sight. He had to reach slightly to make contact with the bottle, so he pushed himself on to his toes. With only slightly trembling fingers, he dragged the bottle forward until it came clear of the shelf.

He jumped instinctively back as something small and dark came with it, hitting his chest. In his shock, his fingers twitched, and Thomas watched in horror as the bottle fell from his grasp to the floor, shattering.

“Fuck!” He stared at broken glass in the wine that now stained the floors and his shoes. That cost…that cost more than he could even understand spending on a bottle of wine, and he had just wasted it. Oh God, he had just broken Lord Grantham’s newest acquisition to his cellar. And with him alone in the office, there was no way to spin it in his favour.

A flicker of the dark thing that had caused it all drew him from his doomed thoughts. He swivelled with heated purpose, ready to end the thing with the full force of his rage for having put him in this position.

It was a centipede, he laughed humourlessly. And no wonder, considering his luck with insects lately. Just a tiny little thing, with its many legs scrambling to find purchase on the wine sprayed flooring. 

Thomas walked towards it, feet crunching over glass, following it towards Carson’s chair behind his desk. He would enjoy ending this horrible creature for what it had caused—and will cause, once Carson and the earl had found out what Thomas had done. His stomach flipped at the thought.

“Oh—“ He stopped full stop, gripping the desk’s ledge tight.

Whilst he had been following just the one centipede, intent on insecticide, it had been leading him to its family. A pile of writhing centipedes each longer and fuzzier then the next twisted along the baseboards. An indescribable feeling, almost a tingling of warning, brushed at his back. The horrible feeling of finding things—rotten things—where they shouldn’t be, dissuaded Thomas from following any further.

Their sheer mass also stopped Thomas from enacting any revenge on its smallest member with his foot alone. With a grimace, he set to look around the office in search of something substantial and heavy with which to kill them from afar, before they could escape to whatever hole they came from.

“In what universe did you think such language would be appropriate to yell, Mr. Barrow?”

Thomas stared, wide-eyed and voiceless, at Carson’s imposing figure in the doorway. Something akin to concern crossed Carson’s face as he saw how pale and suddenly sheepish Thomas looked.

“What—“It was then that he saw the spilled wine, “What on Earth did you do?”

Thomas coughed, trying to force some sort of justification to the surface, but was left with the empty exhalation of dry air.

Carson moved further into the room, gliding seamlessly with indignation blowing a strong wind in his sails.

“How did you manage this?”

Thomas blinked, remembering the horde of centipedes on the ground. Turning to point out their repulsive, brown bodies, he was distressed to find them gone. His eyes searched along the entirety of the baseboards and even up to the corners of the ceiling, but found nothing.

All of them—gone.

But that couldn’t be possible—their number alone was over ten, and they couldn’t all have disappeared in an invisible crack in the baseboards. There had to be at least one, but—

“Mr. Barrow!” Carson called his name with the severity of a thunderclap threatening a torrential downpour.

Thomas realised his mouth was hanging open in shock, and he shut it quickly. Silence rang oppressively in the small office before he opened his mouth again.

“There was…” He paused, knowing the futility of using this particular excuse. The thought of it alone sounding ridiculous before he could bring voice to it, “There was a centipede, and it had startled me—when…whenit fell on me, and,” He sighed, losing all hope as Carson’s frown deepened, “And there were more, but they’re gone now.”

Thomas swallowed, wishing for all the world the floor would open and swallow him whole. Or better yet, to go back before all this happened.

“And you expect me to believe such absurd story-telling when you have broken His Lordship’s most prized bottles of Riesling?”

Thomas pressed his eyes closed and nodded meekly.

“You are to clean this mess up immediately, and I will speak to His Lordship about what you’ve done. You can expect this to be coming out of your wages.”

Thomas nodded again. His wages for all eternity, most likely.

Carson was still staring at him with disbelief, “You can also expect your half days to be filled with polishing silver.”

“But Mr. Carson—“ He couldn’t imagine all of his free time spent polishing silver; he’d lose his mind. Not only that but he was an under-butler, far above such things as polishing silver.

“No, Mr. Barrow. And you’ll be removed from the wine stores until I see fit. Your mind has been elsewhere as of late, and I won’t have this happening again. Is that clear?”

It was useless to argue, he realised, no matter how unfair. It had been a particularly expensive bottle.

“Yes, Mr. Carson.”

He left Thomas to the tedious task of cleaning up his failures. He picked up the glass, mindful of its sharp edges. While he scrubbed the floors of the office, his mind was elsewhere, ruminating on the events that caused his punishment. He hadn’t imagined the centipede or its family, had he?

No—no he had seen the insect. He had felt it hit his chest. Why else would he have dropped the wine?

But then where did they all go?

And then what about the ants earlier this afternoon? Andy hadn’t seen them.

Did that mean that the spider from before was just a spectre of his mind?

His chest filled with something heavy, panic starting to steal the breaths from him. He hadn’t imagined it all. He knew his own mind. Thomas looked at his wrist and grimaced. Didn’t he?

It was with a heavy sickness sitting in his stomach and a tempest in his mind that he left Carson’s office, expecting doom to befall him as soon as he exited. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he almost bowled over Mrs. Baxter.

“Thomas,” she stopped him in the hall with a touch on his arm, “What’s wrong?”

 

“Oh, nothing, Mrs. Baxter. Nothing at all—“

“Thomas,”

“Only I’ve just ruined something very expensive—“

“Thomas,”

“And I’m sure Carson will have me sacked—“

“Thomas!”

“I—what?” He quieted—stopped only by her desperate shout. Looking carefully, he finally noticed the look of alarm on her face. Had she seen something too? A burgeoning hope began to blossom, easing his troubled mind. “What? What is it?”

His eyes followed to where she pointed, finding his fingers digging into the skin of his wrist. His nails had scraped the skin raw, taking great gouges out from the sensitive flesh. Blood, garish against the pale underbelly of his wrist, flooded these spots, seeping in tiny rivers across his skin, and it stained the tips of his fingers where they pressed into the bite.

He jerked his hand, still bent like a gnarled claw, away from his wrist. How long had he been scratching it?

Thomas flexed against the stiffness in his fingers, forcing them to straighten out, before he gripped his arm and held his wrist before him. It throbbed with a sharp ached where it bled.

“Thomas, what—“ Mrs. Baxter trailed off, unsure of what to say to the unravelled man.

“I,” Thomas began and found he could not continue, his throat constricting so tightly. He couldn’t explain this to himself, let alone her.

“Are you taking something again?”

He looked up from his wound in confusion, not quite following her. Taking something?

At his bewildered look, she prompted quietly, “Should we see Dr. Clarkson again?”

His eyes rounded in realisation. She thought he was taking dubious drugs again. In his mind eye, he saw himself as she saw him now—a man standing threadbare before her. The circles under his eyes, now swollen with exhaustion, spoke of restless nights; the tightness of the skin around them, revealing the overhanging anxiety that had followed him for days. But worst of all was the senseless destruction of his own flesh. Hope had been squashed and been replaced by a dread settling deep into his marrow.

Seeing the white of his cuffs absorbing the flowing blood shook him from his reverie.

“No, Mrs. Baxter,” he choked out before he all but ran away from her, leaving her stricken in the hallway.

He hurried straight to his bedroom, ignoring the fact that the servants’ dinner was to be very soon. He needed to get away—to find purchase on a cliff wall that was slowly falling away as his grip tightened. However folly it was, he would continue to grasp for something—something—anything reasonable.

His mind was his own; he had not imagined anything. The insects have been following him lately, and the bite on his wrist a clear indication of the fact. He could stop scratching the bite whenever he wanted to. He was in control.

But perhaps it was fatigue; true to Carson’s words, his mind had been elsewhere during the past days since sleep seemed to lack its usual restorative powers.

He ripped an old cloth into strips and started to wash the painful skin on his arm free of blood, allowing his purposeful actions to take precedence over his unsettled thoughts. Once rinsed, the gouges were left pink and shiny.

“You’re not seeing anything, Thomas,” he said to himself.

It was just a horrible coincidence that all these bugs would bother him at the same time. The weather was cooling, he reminded himself as he wrapped the cloth around the gashes. Insects always came indoors when it winter drew closer. That the others didn’t see was a testament to his keen eye.

He held his now bandaged wrist in his other hand and breathed deeply. With every breath in, he found a little more restraint, a little more determination to face the world.

He would go downstairs, have his dinner, and sit under Carson’ disapproving stare because that’s what he always did. There was nothing wrong.

When he arrived at the servants’ hall, he was pleased to find that dinner was just being served, so there was no opportunity for Mrs. Baxter to start a whispered conversation about the state of his health without drawing undue attention. Sitting down, he ignored her look of concern and focused instead on the meat pie that sat before him.

After Carson said a quick grace, the servants dug in—Thomas included. He savoured his first bite, the warm and savoury flavours fortifying him after a long and stressful day. A day, he reminded himself, that was soon to be over.

A hard crunch halted his jaws from grinding down again—a painful shockwave rocking his teeth from hitting an unsuspecting pit. His tongue pushed at whatever was unyielding against his teeth, feeling something more solid than any meat pie had any business being. He continued to probe and felt a hard shell. After a moment, his tongue felt the ribbed surface of pleats, almost akin to armor, and following its grooved form his tongue found legs—dear god legs—twitching in between his molars. He spat out his mouthful, nearly retching. It hit the congealing innards of his pie with a mouthful of masticated pastry, body spasm in the throes of death—a spasm matched by his stuttering heart, frantically pumping as a muscle atrophied.

“Mr. Barrow! What is the meaning of this!”

“I—I—a beetle?” He swallowed, throat clicking, voice bleating out thready in disbelief, “There’s a beetle in my pie.”

A ripple of unease moved through the others at the table, shifting in discomfort at the thought that Thomas’ pie—made by the same hands that made theirs—was contaminated in any way.

“What?” He heard someone cry.

“There! “ He pointed at the carcass, now still—the imprint of his teeth clear marks on its broken spine.

The feel of the insect was heavy against his tongue, as if it were still caught between his teeth. At their blank looks, he repeated himself louder, as if the volume of his words would help highlight the position of the beetle in the pie, “There!”

Mrs. Baxter leaned over his plate. Her words—chosen carefully and spoken low—were at opposites to Thomas’ frenzy, “That looks like a bit of a burnt potato.”

“And the legs?” Thomas rattled his plate, uncaring that his voice was bouncing against the walls—unconcerned that some of the maids flinched at his tone.

“Sprigs of rosemary—Thomas, what?” She trailed off, looking towards the others at the table. She was worried but not for the right reasons—not because there was an insect in his food—but because she didn’t think anything was there, that Thomas was seeing things.

His breath was stolen from his lungs in great puffs, each inhale growing larger and shakier then the next. 

No. She was wrong. Wasn’t she? He looked back at his plate and saw the beetle plain as day.

Mrs. Baxter was looking at him with concern. Pity. They all were. His mouth was dry. Can’t they see it?

Why can’t they see it?

“I think I’m gonna be—“ He pushed himself out of his seat, staggering drunkenly towards the kitchens.

He braced himself against the sink, steeling himself against the nausea, spitting into the drain despite the dishes currently taking space in the basin. Turning the tap to full, he bent so he could pull deep mouthfuls of the running water straight into his mouth—swishing it around and spitting out—wishing he had something much stronger to clear the bitter taste of the beetle from his tongue.

“Mr. Barrow,” It was Carson.

Thomas frozen next to the tap and shut his eyes in defeat—he couldn’t deal with this now.

“You will explain yourself—“

“Thomas?” Mrs. Baxter had joined, “Tell us what’s going on.”

He swirled from his position over the sink, eyes wide, “I already told you—there was a bloody beetle in my dinner.”

Her face softened, just as Carson’s indignation melted into confusion.

“You were mistaken,”

“No,” He shoved away from the sink and raised a pointed hand, as if warding against her words, “No!”

“Thomas—“

“No, you’re wrong. It was there. It’s still there,” he eyed the kitchen, from floor to ceiling, “This whole godforsaken place is overrun with bugs, but nobody else can see it.”

Mrs. Baxter took a tentative step forward—arms raised in supplication—looking alarmingly to Thomas like she was trying to calm a spooked horse.

“You’re tired, Thomas,” she took another step forward, “You’re just overtired—seeing things that aren’t there.”

Thomas shook his head microscopically, as his body trembled; a look of devastation crumpling his face.

“You’re wrong,” he whispered, feeling tired and empty suddenly, like a balloon bereft of all its air. Her words sounding similar to the thoughts he had in his room. He repeated it again, quieter—to himself—as just the act of breathing a hardship.

Behind her, Carson nodded, “You’ve been working hard as of late, which I thank you for, but you need to rest. This… business… about insects is a product of your exhaustion.”

Thomas scoffed. No, he realised rest wasn’t what he needed. What he needed to do was to tear down the abbey beam by beam and find every last insect and ensure its quick demise—what he needed was for his life to be completely devoid of any creature with six or more legs—what he needed was for someone to believe him.

But with their face drawn shut, Thomas knew he couldn’t turn to Mrs. Baxter or Mr. Carson—or to anyone else. He was alone here.

He pressed his fingers against the bandage covering his wrist, liking the sharp pressure against tender skin. It recalled the everlasting itch that he had managed to ignore during supper—his evidence.

“Thomas, your wrist—“ Mrs. Baxter started.

“It’s itchy,” he snapped, tired of her concern.

If they didn’t believe him, then he would just have to show them.

“I’ll show you,” He said, grasping the bag of flour left sitting on the counter and tore into.

Great plumes of white powder exploded into the air between them, obscuring the shock on Carson’s and Baxter’s faces. He poured the flour all over the counter, shifting his fingers through its softness to find something—anything. When there was nothing there, he moved onto the next container, spilling its contents onto the floor.

Heedless of their distressed yells, he continued to plow through the kitchen’s stock, intent on finding the beetle’s brethren.

Suddenly, hands were on him, pulling him away from the destruction he had caused. He wrestled against them—Andy and Mr. Carson and even Mr. Bates—but was no match for their combined strength.

“No!” He yelled, as they dragged him out of the kitchens, passing by the shocked faces of the other servants gathered in the hallways. The shame of being seen like this—paraded in front of them like the village mad man—was overshadowed by his need to find the source of the infestation—to prove it wasn’t just in his mind.

He growled, trying to push back into the kitchens. He had to show them. Then they’d believe him. But Mr. Bates yanked at his collar, momentarily strangling him against the strain, stopping his attempts in full.

“Let me go!” he choked, wriggling for all he was worth, breath wheezing. He scratched at their arms and faces, unknowingly drawing blood in his determination, but there were hands everywhere, pulling at his arms and shoulders and neck, forcing him forward.

Finally they had pushed him into Mr. Carson’s office, all but dragging him in and depositing him in the chair at the desk. Thomas shot up as soon as his backside hit the chair’s surface, desperate now to escape their clutches.

“Just let me go,” he began, but the combined weight of Andy and Mr. Carson pushed him back into the chair.

“I can show you here too—“ a hard slap forced his head to the left, and Thomas had to blink against the power behind Mr. Bates’ hand. He cradled his now burning cheek, looking up through his dishevelled hair to see Bates heaving before him.

“No you will not.”

All four men, Thomas included, were gasping, taking a moment to draw breath in the silence Mr. Bates’ slap had caused.

“Please,” Thomas began, his voice breaking over the short word. “Just—this isn’t what you think.”

He was ignored, in favour of Mr. Carson barking orders to the others, asking for the doctor to be called. Thomas looked towards the door to find Mrs. Hughes nod once—face stricken—before she turned to do just that. He turned his gaze to Andy, who was looking ashen and unsure—a trail of blood on his cheek.

Here was an ally.

“Andy,” Thomas croaked, “I’m not mad, please…”

“That is enough, Thomas!” Mr. Carson bellowed. “You are to remain here until Dr. Clarkson arrives. You are clearly unwell.”

“No, no, no. I’m not! I’m perfectly fine,” Thomas, oblivious to how wretched and dishevelled he looked, watched as the others moved towards the door.

Perhaps he had acted too impulsively—he should have built his case with irrefutable evidence instead of tearing up the kitchen in his haste to find something. But he wasn’t wrong.

With a frown, he jumped from his seat. They were going to leave him in here, alone. “Wait, don’t!”

The door slammed shut just as he grabbed the doorknob. It stuck. He slapped at the wooden surface with his open palm to no avail—kicking it when he heard the click of the key engage the lock.

“Damnit, don’t leave me here! I can prove it all!”

“For our safety and our own, you’ll be left here until the doctor arrives,” Mr. Carson’s voice carried through the wood.

No, no, no.

Thomas gripped at his hair and pulled, eyeing the room before him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. How could he have been so stupid? He punched the wall, causing a splinter in the plaster. He shook his hand, sure he had broken something.

Running a thumb over the bleeding knuckles, he was inspecting the ruined skin when the sound returned—wet and glutinous. Thomas abandoned his hand and stared at the wall—the sound of it louder than it had ever been before. Unlike the tiny pattering of draining water, now it was almost a gushing torrent.

But it had changed in timbre slightly—headier and heavier—certainly faster.

Thomas took small steps closer to the cracked wall where he had punched, watching in fascination as the paint began to bubble. With a frown, he drew even closer still, determined to look through the fine fissures his fist had caused and find the source of this sound.

A small earth worm wriggled through a crevice and dropped with an audible plop to the ground at Thomas’ feet. He cocked his head and frowned in confusion as another one soon joined the first.

Slowly, the slight bubbling ballooned into a great, rippling swell surrounding the crevice. Whatever had been blocked was now being funnelled to the opened wall, finding in the fissures its only exit. Thomas took a step back and watched in stunned silence as a beetle’s head broke through the tiny opening—antennae twitching— burrowing until it too fell to the ground with the worms. Once through, the opening had become a hole nearly as wide as Thomas’ thumb, and like a wine bottle uncorked, it began to flow with a steady stream.

He had been wrong. No water flowed from this leak. What Thomas once thought was draining water was actually the buzzing and hissing of angry, trapped insects that were eager to find release from the walls’ prison.

Thomas rushed backwards, tripping over his own feet as the swelling burst and created a gaping hole; from it spiders and centipedes and flies surged from the wall in an unending eruption. They were dropping to the floor and soon crawling and flying outwards until half the room’s tile was covered with their writhing bodies.

In the mess, he recognised the bulbous orb spider that had emerged from the plumbing the previous day, except now they were legion, many of them larger than its fallen comrade. But they were not limited to this, as there crawling legs were joined with those of fuzzy, lumbering tarantulas and tiny, sprightly house spiders. Beside them, cockroaches hissed as they fell to the floor, and centipedes scrambled over the others’ bodies. Staring into their rippling heap, he saw their mass throb with an intensity fit for a pounding heartbeat—a heartbeat just like his own.

Thomas was at the locked door, back slamming against the hard wood. He watched in horror as the bugs too innumerable to count followed, gaining ground while more bugs pushed through the wall behind them in a geyser. His hand tried the latch knowing it wouldn’t turn. Steeling himself, he turned around to properly bang against its surface, revealing his back to the throng. With an eye over his shoulder, he kept his eyes focused on the moving swarm.

“Mr. Carson? Mr. Bates? Uh—“ he waved his hand at the flies and flying insects with large wingspans that came close to his head, his ears, “Jesus, let me out!”

He watched as they spread over the wall, eating up everything in their way with their slithering bodies. Soon half of the room—the walls, the desk, the chair he had just been sitting in—was blanketed in a quivering mess of dark, buzzing bodies. He could already feel the growing mass of spiders and cockroaches at his neck, their bodies combined to make a dense weight that would crush him. His spine shivered in déjà vu, half remembered dreams revealing themselves in the phantom touches he could already feel—knowing, that soon, they wouldn’t be quite phantom anymore and instead would be a heavy throng, wet and sticky against his skin.

“Please! Someone—anyone—you can’t keep me in here with this. You have to let me out!”

The first of them were at his feet now, a large spider crawling over the toes of his polished shoe. He kicked out, throwing it back into the throng of encroaching bugs, its body lost to the masses.

“Let me out, let me out,” he began to chant repeatedly, desperate to escape.

Now others drew closer, and he found himself stamping on the hard bodies of beetles and millipedes and insects he had only previously read about underneath his feet, cringing at the sound their crushed bodies made. So focused on killing these things before they could climb up under his trousers and onto his skin that he didn’t realise that a soft keening escaped his lips, joining the sound of their flapping wings and writhing bodies.

There were too many of them for his feet to crush, for every five destroyed by his sole, another ten took their place. There wasn’t a free space—the only part of the room not covered by their bodies was where Thomas was standing. This was it—no one was going to open the door, and Thomas was going to be devoured by this fountain of awful creatures.

He saw them climbing up his trouser leg now, and felt more climbing the underside of his trousers. Thomas yelped as several, sharp bites broke the skin of shins, his calves, and he watched in horror as he saw a particularly large spider press its fangs through the wool of his trousers and into the meat of his thigh with a powerful sting. Frantically brushing it off with shaking fingers, Thomas found it hard to breathe—panic now crushing like a vice against his lungs, his ribs unable to support proper inhalation—the bones themselves feeling brittle against the rattling of his heart, the muscle desperate to leave the horrors before it. The corners of his eyes grew dimmer—dark as the bodies now climbed his body—as what little breath he did have left him in a high, pitched wheeze. They were on his belly now, and he couldn’t quite move fast enough to brush them (his fingers numb); he couldn’t writhe hard enough to dislodge them (his body resistant); he couldn’t to do anything but to be a play thing for these creatures. He covered his ears and eyes, pressing his lips close, frantic not to let them in, remembering the feel of them pressing into his throat and belly in another world. The darkness behind closed eyes was just as sightless as the muddy nightmare, and the last thing Thomas thought was how terrible it was to die just as how your nightmares predicted before the door behind him disappeared and he fell into unconsciousness.

++++  
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Thomas opened his eyes to a bright blue sky with a listless cloud floating across it. He frowned. Was he dead? Surely, this wasn’t heaven. The ground was too hard, and his body ached as if he had worked a day’s hard labour.

Quickly, he realised the sounds of murmured cries and rushed whispers surrounded him. With a frown, he pushed up onto his arms and took stock of his surroundings.

He was lying on the grounds before the abbey, with what looked like all of the servants and the entire family strewn about its lawn. They all were staring at the abbey with pale, horror struck faces.

Thomas looked down and found himself stripped of his jacket and trousers, left only in his undergarments—the whites of which were stained with green, sticky messes stuck with the detritus of legs and antennae.

His heart plummeted as he remembered Carson’s office and his near entombment, hands brushing at his arms and legs without conscious thought. He could still be covered in them.

His frantic movements alerted the attention of Mrs. Baxter, who broke from Molesley and knelt beside him.

“It’s alright,” she made an abortive move to touch his shoulder, “I think we killed the lot of them.”

He gaped, “All of them?” There had to have been millions.

She grimaced, “No. The ones on you, we killed. After Andy dragged you out of the abbey.”

At his confused look, she explained that while Thomas was battling his insects in Carson’s office, the pipes in the kitchen, and all of the toilets, including the ones upstairs, burst forth with the same spray of unwanted bugs. Some of the weaker walls and ceilings collapsed on themselves, revealing even more throngs of insects. In some areas nests of spiders were more prevalent, others flies. Whatever they were, the abbey was riddled with them, and everyone fled.

The servants had quickly evacuated as the walls and floors were eaten up by bugs. Andy and Mr. Bates had the thought to release Thomas from his prison while the others escaped, some of them brave enough to help the Crawleys. They had caught him just as he was overwhelmed. His stomach churned at the thought of them finding him too late, nauseous with relief that they didn’t. Yet—angry because, had they just listened to him, he would have never been trapped there to begin with.

Now, everyone was standing outside, watching from afar in disgust. Before them the abbey stood untouched from the outside, hiding its rotten insides well. Thomas watched as Lord Grantham began to talk animatedly to his wife about curses and specialists and moving to London.

As he watched, Mr. Bates had slowly limped towards Thomas with Carson, their faces only capable of a vague look of concern in the face of such shock. When he turned towards them, leaving the earl to his theatrics, blessed relief coursed through Thomas’ body. He let his back hit the grass again and sighed, taking in their ashen colouring and dishevelled hair before sharpening his gaze.

“I told you I wasn’t bloody mad.”

His wrist burned, and his fingers broke under his bandage to press deep into the wound, and he smiled when he felt the warmth of blood bloom.


	4. One Can't Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. If one feels that there is nothing ‘we’ can do… then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.  
>  -Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by tumblr user afewreelthoughts  
> Prompt: Thomward: first kiss

Thomas chose to redress the bed next to the blinded solider with the explicit intention of being closer to the man. He had only very brief exchanges with him. The most recent reason being that Thomas had to deliver a dosage of tablets earlier that afternoon. He had learnt then that the soldier was a lieutenant and that his name was Edward Courtenay.

But before that, he had noticed the wounded soldier—the white bandages catching Thomas’ eyes more than anything else at first. He had stolen glances then, emboldened by the fact that the lieutenant couldn’t look back—a disturbed feeling of elation blooming hotly in his belly with the knowledge that he was at liberty to drink in the image of weakness the soldier presented. He found himself turning towards Edward’s bed during the many tasks that filled his day, looking if only for a moment to take him in—his very own object of contemplation. Thomas began to search out the skin of the man’s face, yearning to see the scars hiding behind cloth. Just as he stared at his hand every night before bed, he wanted to look at these bandages. Why, Thomas couldn’t quite fathom. It was like a wound worried—an act that was hideous but compulsive.

These stolen glances weren’t enough; his fascination desired more—to know this man—so he found himself grabbing a set of linens from one of the nurses. Seeking the excuse of proximity in the crisp corners of the sheets, he never thought it would lead him here, sitting before Edward—

“No, not Lieutenant Courtenay—I’m hardly fit for battle here—call me Edward.”

—and discussing their pasts.

It started with a throw-away comment in the same way that any of Thomas’ words were throw-away—in that, they weren’t, but they were carefully crafted to look that way. He revealed just enough of himself to determine the interest of the other, suggesting a friendliness that couldn’t be construed as too intimate or too indifferent should Edward be a reserved sort.

He was, but it was a distance Thomas attributed to the thick swath of bandage covering his eyes. His words were pitched low, as if he were worried he would be speaking too loudly. The way the words echoed back to him in the blackened dimensions of the room probably made it seem like he was. Edward was a just tiny pinprick in the centre of a now darkened universe, and he had the audacity to carve his words into the blank space before him expecting an answer. His question about Thomas’ time as a footman was curt—said quickly to cover his feeling of discomfort for speaking without seeing—without knowing if Thomas was even still there.

He couldn’t know that Thomas orbited him so closely, drawing nearer with each meeting. Edward could only guess that the Corporal was sitting on the empty bed next to him; he lacked crucial details of the scene that Thomas only felt too strongly.

Thomas sat before Edward with his hands pinned between his legs, feeling exposed—not because of the nurses flittering behind him—but because Edward’s very presence arrested him. The complexity of the man once engaged in conversation altered his vision of the wounded soldier, making him feel strange for having sought out his face in the crowd, finding strength in his handsome face against the atrocities of the hospital.

The man couldn’t even see him and yet Thomas was laid bare before him, anxiously aware that Edward—in listening to his void answer back—was paying more attention to Thomas than anyone had ever done before. Without being watched, Thomas felt acutely viewed and appraised.

The weight of it was only challenged by the heaviness of Edward’s words, and Thomas looked away to escape it.

“Rare cases, and much sooner than this. It doesn’t help me to be lied to, you know. I’m finished. And I’d rather face it than dodge it.”

Foolish—Thomas didn’t know why he offered optimism when he despised it in others. It was desperation, the idea that he couldn’t help him as intolerable as offering these platitudes. He finally looked at Edward’s bandages, willing to see past them and for Edward to see him—to see that what Thomas felt surpassed offering empty rallying cries.

This was a mistake, and he would leave before he would say any more.

After several days spent working with Edward, there was no need to find excuses to be near him. While there were others under his purview, Edward took precedence over all others. He had become his charge which is why Thomas found himself in his off time reading the lieutenant’s letters.

His family’s letters. The realisation that he read aloud a very private letter from Edward’s brother settled heavily against his diaphragm, making it hard to respond to Edward when he spoke bitterly of his betrayal.

“Yeah, well,” He managed to muster and instantly regretted it when Edward replied with,

“I’m sorry—I mustn’t bore you.”

In his voice Thomas heard more than an apology—there was a resentful acceptance that Edward—abandoned by God, by King and country, and now by his family—had no one to turn to. Thomas could see Edward shrink into himself. Thomas knew that he would be laying the foundations of walls meant to protect against this knowledge, for Thomas had erected his very own. His face flushed with the act of recognition, throat suddenly tight with the memories of his own family. Thomas was always at the precipice of insinuation, and the only reason he hadn’t yet fallen was because he fought tooth and nail to hang on. If he had no one else, Thomas would be his own champion, and while he would also defend Edward, the man couldn’t let the thick walls of his fortification be an excuse to give up.

“You’re not a victim. Don’t let them make you into one.”

“You know, when you talk like that, I almost believe you.”

Thomas considered his next words carefully, encouraged by Edward’s warmth, “You should believe me. All my life they’ve pushed me around just cause I’m different.”

The naivety of Edward’s question of ‘how’ curdled something deep in Thomas’ belly, reminding him that he couldn’t speak of it here and that likely, Edward would never want to hear the truth.

Shaking his head, Thomas said, “Never mind. Look. Look—I don’t know if you’re going to see again or not, but I do know you have to fight back.”

Courtenay’s hand against his knee was surprisingly heavy and warm, and for the first time he was glad that Edward couldn’t see the unguarded look of hope dawning on his face. Thomas grasped his hand, chest filling with the idea that perhaps they could share the burden of truth together.

His heart filled with something entirely different weeks later when he arrived at Edward’s cot to help him pack his belongings. Edward had a head start while Thomas had his dismal meeting with Doctor Clarkson. He had already pulled his suitcase out from under his bed. Thomas took in how his shoulders were drawn up to his ears and how the stiff set to his back made his movements jerky. But it was the numb look of acceptance that had Thomas rushing forward, grasping at Edward’s fumbling hands.

Thomas apologised when Edward jerked with a sibilant wheeze escaping his parting lips.

“You haven’t any reason to apologise. He’s right you know—I’m just taking up a bed for someone who really needs it. A waste, really.”

Thomas grabbed Edward’s shoulder, pressing his thumb against the bone softly, “No—no, he’s wrong. It—you—aren’t a waste.”

Edward shrugged out from under Thomas’ hand and turned back to his bed. He shook his head, cloudy eyes drifting back and forth. “No. There are far more deserving men than me who need this bed. You heard Doctor Clarkson. I’m not ill anymore. I’ve no reason to be here anymore, and the sooner you begin to understand that too the better.”

Words dried up in Thomas’ mouth, and for a moment he watched in silence as Edward began to open the clasps of his suitcase.

“Let me at least help you pack, Edward.” Thomas said as he moved closer, pushing open the lid.

“No,” Edward shouted and yanked at the handle with enough force that the lid slammed shut. A loud bang rang out, causing a few of the nearby soldiers to look over. Edward’s head dipped. Quieter, he began again, “No, Corporal, I’ll do it on my own. Please—just leave me alone.”

There wasn’t much else he could do. Not when Edward’s voice was so stormy, so Thomas left with a murmured goodbye. He knew that Edward would need some time to adjust to the idea of his transfer. He didn’t need Thomas niggling at the injury, making it worse. What good could Thomas do? What good could Thomas ever do for any of these men?

Turning to his other tasks, Thomas’ eyes rarely strayed from the blinded man. As evening drew closer, Thomas found himself standing in the door, watching Edward worry his lip as he sat against his bedpost. This wasn’t a stolen glance from the corner of his eye as his hands were busy elsewhere. The rush of the day had quieted after the evening meal, and Edward was alone in this area of the hospital. It afforded Thomas the freedom to stand as he was with his full attention entirely on Edward.

He looked over the lines of Edward’s supine body, reading into each angle a hardened cynicism—into each curve a miserable hopelessness. He pursed his lips against the complex feelings of bitterness and longing that were currently warring a tempest in his chest—that were threatening to rise up and spill from his mouth. Thomas was overcome with the intolerable feeling of despair—his heart bursting with it, made worse for the fact that he had no means to help.

Nurse Crawley walked through another door, crossing the floor to say goodnight to Edward briefly. Her shift was ending, and she was heading towards her own rooms. She brushed past Thomas smelling of a floral eau de parfum.

“It isn’t right,” she said, “There’s so much more that we can do for him here.”

Thomas nodded and bid her goodnight.

She was right; there was so much more to be done. Sending Edward to Farley was a mistake, threatening to reverse what little improvements he had manage to gain. But Dr. Clarkson—who knew nothing of the man who had been reading at Oxford—who had dreams of farming—the man that had a younger brother itching to assert his place at the head of the family—just saw him as one of thousands of wounded men coming home from war, no better than the rest.

Dr. Clarkson thought that there was nothing that they could do. But Clarkson was wrong; there was nothing that he was willing to do, and the doctor didn’t represent Thomas any more than Carson once did while he was footman. Thomas swallowed against the lump in his throat and began walking towards Edward before he could think to stop himself.

“Edward,” he said quietly, alerting him of his presence.

The man turned his head in Thomas’ general direction, his gaze set to somewhere near his chin. Thomas sat on the cot in the space that Edward’s narrow body didn’t fill—there hips close enough that Thomas could feel the heat of Edward’s body.

“Edward—I,” Thomas stuttered. He stared at Edward’s milky eyes, for once not looking away in sympathetic courtesy as he usually did when they were speaking. He pulled at the leather glove covering his left hand. The skin was hot against the cool air.

“Give me your hand, Edward,” Thomas said, already gripping at the other.

“Thomas—what?”

“Here,” Thomas directed Edward’s fingers to the scar, “Do you feel this?”

The scar burned slightly under the probing finger. Edward’s eyes shifted back and forth quickly as he felt the scared lines crossing Thomas’ palm.

“Thomas, what is this?”

“You know I was a medic—obviously,” Thomas said, swallowing thickly, “But you don’t know why I’m here—instead of back on the front lines.”

Thomas watched as Edward’s eyebrows furrow, and his heart convulsed weakly beneath his ribs.

“Where I was—I—I saw myself as having two options,” he laid his other hand over Edward’s, cupping his hand between his own. “And so I did something very desperate because—because the alternative was unthinkable.”

Edward’s face had gone strangely blank.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be where—how—you are—and I won’t ever, but—please,” Thomas stopped, taking a shaky breath to steel himself, “Sometimes an act of desperation is a benediction.”

Thomas grimaced when Edward remained silent for a time.

“Thomas, my act of desperation isn’t like yours,” Edward ducked his head into his chest—even in blindness he sought to rid himself of Thomas’ gaze. “My alternative is being cast away to the care of Farley Hall before I’m collected by my family and taken home, where I can expect to carry out the remainder of my days holed away in the darkness.”

“No—“

“I seek not for your approval, Thomas,” Edward said, ripping his hand out from Thomas’ grip.

“No, I know you don’t, but,” And Thomas realised that his next words were true, “I seek yours.”

Thomas cast a quick eye to ensure that they remained the lone occupants of the room before he touched two fingers to Edward’s chin and turned him so that they were facing each other again.

“I—,” Thomas licked his lips, dropping his gaze from Edward’s eyes for the first time since he sat down to look at his lips. Thomas pressed his hand back until he lightly gripped Edward’s neck—his thumb resting at the joint of Edward’s clenched jaw. When Edward didn’t object, Thomas moved forward, brushing his lips softly against Edward’s and inhaling the warm air that Edward breathed.

Thomas pulled back quickly, the touch of their mouths a hurried meeting in such an open space. He opened his eyes, looking towards Edward for his reaction. His eyebrows were raised, arching almost painfully and his eyes were rounded wide enough to show the whites.

“This—this is what you meant,” he breathed.

“Yes,” Thomas said, body flushing hotly as he remembered himself, “Sorry—“

“Don’t,” Edward grabbed clumsily at Thomas wrist, following the cuff of his uniform to find his hand. Thomas gasped at the strength with which Edward clutched at his hand. A small smile quirked Edward’s lips, though his brows had begun to furrow deep giving him a confusing look of bemusement.

“There’s a way, I think, if you just give me a day,” Thomas said, “I know the family here. I’ve worked for them ever since I was young. I’ll speak to Lady Grantham. She’ll listen to me.”

Thomas cleared his throat, “Dr. Clarkson is wrong. You don’t need bloody Farley Hall.”

“Dr. Clarkson—“

“Is a prick. He doesn’t care. Not like I do, and I’m sick of just standing back while people who need my help wither away.”

Edward shook his head slightly, “I don’t know what you want me to say,”

“Nothing. Just trust me. Let me stand in your corner,” Thomas said, “Lady Grantham will convince Dr. Clarkson you’ve a place here.”

“That still doesn’t change the facts.”

“No, but my place will be at your side. Please, Edward, let me just speak with Lady Grantham. Just another day.”

Edward considered Thomas’ proposal for a moment before he smiled ruefully, “What do I have to lose?”

Thomas laughed, blinking the haze away from eyes. The tightness in his chest began to ease, “What do you have to lose?” He patted Edward’s knee and made to stand.

Before he could rise, Edward suddenly grabbed at his chest and bunched a fistful of his uniform. He dragged Thomas close, and Thomas bent in to meet him the rest of the way, letting their lips touch in a chaste kiss.

“I’ll be back first thing tomorrow, and we’ll figure it all out, eh?”

Edward nodded, looking faintly shocked that he was agreeing, “Until tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any prompts that you want filled, give me a shout. I may not have them out soon, but I'll get to it.


End file.
